The majority of commercially available golf balls are advertised as having high spin rates since such spin rates are desirable for the better golfer. A high spin rate in a golf ball indicates that the ball rotates very rapidly about its axis when struck by the skilled player. The advantage of the high spin rate is that the ball can be made to produce a reverse or backspin so that the ball stops very quickly when hit into a green on an approach shot.
While high spin rates are desirable for a highly skilled golfer, most amateur golfers are not capable of hitting a ball in a manner to produce controlled spin on the ball. More importantly, most amateur golfers have a swing that is either an inside-out or outside-in swing that produces side spin on the ball. Side spin causes the ball to move laterally off a desired target line, i.e., in either a hook or slice direction. For such amateur golfers, it is desirable to eliminate or at least substantially reduce spin of the ball so that the ball travels in essentially a straight line from the clubface without the detrimental curved caused by side spin. Further, eliminating most of the ball spin will cause the ball to travel a farther distance in a desired direction.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,423,535 issued to Shaw, et al on Jun. 13, 1995, teaches that it is desirable to provide a golf club having a ball-contacting face piece with a low friction characteristic. Materials identified by Shaw for the face piece include PTFE, which is generally considered a low friction material and has a coefficient of friction of approximately 0.05-0.15, and other materials that are generally considered not to have a low friction characteristic. Shaw teaches a variety of shapes and materials for the face piece of a golfing “iron” club wherein the shape of the face piece is selected to control the weight distribution and the flexural modulus of the club head.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,743,812 issued to Card on Apr. 28, 1998, describes a golf driver having a layer of PTFE forming a ball-contacting surface. The layer of PTFE is described as the SUPRA® coating system available from E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. and applied by a known spray/dry/cure process. The layer of PTFE has a cured thickness of between 20-40 microns (μm). This patent describes the coating as being effective to provide the clubface with a kinetic coefficient of friction that is less than about 50% of the kinetic coefficient of friction of a similar driver club not having the coating. Such measurements were conducted in accordance with ASTM D-1894-93 standard test methods where a golf ball was pulled across various test panels and the static and kinetic coefficients of friction were measured.